Professor of Marketing
Warrington College of Business Administration
2008 Awardee
Even the most poorly stocked grocery stores offer dozens of different toothpastes, shelves of spaghetti sauces and aisles of cereal. Among all of these seemingly identical products, however, shoppers often develop unwavering loyalty to just one brand. Sometimes, they choose their favorites without an obvious reason or even conscious thought.
How and why people buy what they buy is marketing Professor Chris Janiszewski’s specialty. By dissecting concepts like product exposure, consumer learning and price perception, Janiszewski reveals and studies the anatomy of consumer behavior.
According to his research, consumers are drawn to familiar products that are easily simplified into one or two pleasant qualities. Repeated exposure alone can persuade a person to buy products and even vote for certain candidates. Once consumers realize why they latch on to certain products or people, Janiszewski maintains, they can learn to look past these promotional ploys.
In the past five years, Janiszewski has published 10 refereed articles in the best marketing journals, according to marketing department Chair Joseph W. Alba.
“The rarity of such productivity is self-evident to his colleagues in marketing … this period of productivity is among the highest of anyone in our field during the past five years and is probably one of the most outstanding records of productivity in our discipline over any five-year period,” Alba said.
Janiszewski is the associate editor for the Journal of Marketing Research and sits on the review boards of several other major marketing journals. He also received the UF Doctoral Dissertation Advisor/Mentoring Award for 2006-2007 for his ability to guide and encourage graduate students through their final dissertations and projects.